Auyang Sunny Y. The Dragon and the Eagle: The Rise and Fall of the Chinese and Roman Empires

Routledge, 2014. — 426 p.This stimulating, uniquely organized, and wonderfully readable comparison of ancient Rome and China offers provocative insights to students and general readers of world history. The book's narrative is clear, completely jargon-free, strikingly independent, and addresses the complete cycles of two world empires. It begins with the births of empire builders, the investiture of the state of Qin in 771 BCE and the foundation of the Roman Republic in 509 BCE. The stories end with the fall of northern China in 316 CE and the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 CE, each to a multitude of barbarian peoples originating from beyond its northern frontier. In between those dates, the author systematically juxtaposes the Realpolitik of ancient Rome and China to demonstrate the parallelism explaining their respective ascents and falls. The topics explored include nation formation, state building, empire building, arts of government, strategies of superpowers, and decline and fall.